| | | Formatting equations in LaTeX |
In your first steps with LaTeX, you may not have seen why LaTeX is better than the word processor you are used to. (If you have some typesetting experience, however, you may have noticed how nicely LaTeX justifies lines and how clever LaTeX is about hyphenating words.) Where LaTeX really shines is the formatting of mathematical equations. Indeed, the program TeX that underlies LaTeX was created by Donald E. Knuth, a mathematician and computer scientist, with the needs of mathematicians in mind.
Equations come in two flavors: short in-line equations that do not interrupt the paragraph, and displayed equations that are printed on a separate line. In the LaTeX source file, all mathematical formulas are enclosed between special delimiters that signal LaTeX to switch to its special mathematics mode.
The Math 696 course
pages were last modified April 5, 2005. | | | Formatting equations in LaTeX |